1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a security tool absence alarm system. More particularly, the invention relates to a system for use with automobiles and other vehicles equipped with parts requiring specially designed tools for attachment and removal, which activates an alarm whenever the ignition is on and the specially designed tool is missing from a predetermined storage position in the vehicle. In this specification and the claims following, any such specially designed tool required for attachment or removal of such parts will be termed a "security tool".
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many modern automobiles, trucks and other vehicles are equipped with costly parts, for example wheels or wheel covers. In order to prevent or at least discourage theft, such parts are generally attached to the vehicle by means of one or more bolts or similar fastening devices which can be engaged or disengaged only with a security tool. For example, a wheel lug nut may have a unique shape which cannot be engaged by a standard lug wrench, and the vehicle is provided with a security tool which is a lug wrench or socket member especially shaped to engage lug nuts having the unique shape.
A serious problem can arise with vehicles having the above-described features if the owner, garage mechanic, etc. removes the security tool, for example use in rotating the tires, and forgets to put it back in the vehicle, e.g. in the glove compartment or trunk. If in such case the owner or driver should experience a flat tire while on the road, he or she would be unable to remove the wheel or wheel cover at all, or at least without causing serious damage to the part. The difficulties and potential dangers of such a situation are obvious, especially given the frequency of muggings, car thefts, etc. in current society.
Great inconvenience and potential damage could be avoided if the operator of a vehicle such as described above could be alerted to the absence of the security tool whenever the vehicle ignition was turned on. So far as I am aware, nothing in the prior art deals with this problem, the closest such art relating only to storage and control of keys for locks.
In the key and lock field, the prior art discloses several arrangements for key management, e.g. for limiting key access to particular persons or for producing a signal if a key has been out of a storage housing for a particular period of time. For example, Peters et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,661,806 discloses a highly complex computer-controlled system for managing and controlling access to several keys in larger businesses such as hotels and car dealerships; FIG. 9 of the patent and the specification related thereto teach use of an alarm if the status of a key has changed or a key has been issued to a person without proper access authorization. Morrow et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,051,724 discloses a key security device for use in prisons, mental hospitals etc., and teaches the use of a mechanical switch operator which responds to insertion and removal of a key from a housing and is set to sound an alarm if the key is out of the housing for more than a predetermined interval of time. However, neither reference relates in any way to security tools for vehicle parts such as wheels and wheel covers, and neither of the systems taught by the references would be practical or economically feasible for use in an automobile, truck or the like.